note 85288 modified in function.preg-replace by felipe

preg_replace is greedy by default, and the behaviour of ? on the pattern is to make it non-greedy contrary to what i read on PCRE docs. $str ="asdfd adsfd aaaadasd"; $str = preg_replace("/(a)(.*)(d)/","a($2)d",$str); a(sdfd adsfd aaaadas)d $str = preg_replace("/(a)(.*)?(d)/U","a($2)d",$str); a(s)dfd a()dsfd a(aaa)da(s)d which is what i wanted. --was-- correction. preg_replace is greedy by default, and the behaviour of ? on the pattern is to make it non-greedy contrary to what i read on PCRE docs. $str ="asdfd adsfd aaaadasd"; $str = preg_replace("/(a)(.*)(d)/","a($2)d",$str); a(sdfd adsfd aaaadas)d $str = preg_replace("/(a)(.*)?(d)/U","a($2)d",$str); a(s)dfd a()dsfd a(aaa)da(s)d which is what i wanted. http://php.net/manual/en/function.preg-replace.php